2013: Outreach

Here is a recap of some of the
summer outreach activities the McDevitt Robotics team has done in 2013.

We started the summer with a
visit to Boy Scout troop 1 from Christ Lutheran Church in Orland
Pa. We showed the robot and talked extensively about the design
process. The boy scouts were very interested in the robot and how it was
build. Many scouts took a turn driving and we were very impressed by
their questions. Special thanks to Paul Schlosser for arranging the
visit.

Next the robot appeared in the
Glenside 4th of July parade. We took some lessons learned from
last year and placed the robot in a trailer rather than driving it on the
street. We consider this event a terrific way to show the community the
great things going on at the school and we view this as an opportunity to give
some public credit to our sponsors.

Here we are shooting the red
frizbee into a crowd of McDevitt Alumni. The drivers sat in the bed of a
pickup and drove the robot around inside the trailer.

To keep the robot’s special
wheels from getting damaged we carpeted the trailer before the parade.
All along the parade route kids asked us the “Shoot one a me”, but we had to
keep the shoots in the street. Many kids wanted to keep the Frisbees and
we only had 4.

Next we visited the Springfield
township Library for Robot Night. This was a joint event with our friends
from team 433, the Firebirds. “Robot Night” is one the signature events
of the Library’s summer program with many kids returning from year to
year. Here the Firebird’s robot zooms over the smash into Firetruck while
the kids watch.

The event starts off with a
“robot scavenger hunt” where kids search for various robot parts on 4 different
robots. Then a demo is given before the kids get to take a turn at
driving the robot. We had to dial down the power on the Frisbee shooter
to make sure we did not knock our any ceiling tiles. Here is what the
children’s librarian has to say after the event.

“without a doubt one of the best programs we have all
year

We wrapped up our summer with at
trip to the Elbow Lane day camp. This was a joint event with our friends
from team 708, Hardwired Fusion. Here the robots battle on the basketball
court.

Here a future engineer gets some
instruction on driving a robot.

We are not quite done with
showing off our robot yet. Early in the fall, when the University is back
in session, we will be visiting our sponsor Arcadia for an afternoon showing
off the robot to the students. We also plan to bring the robot at the
annual alumni golf outing. If you have an idea for where the robot might
be shown next, let me know.

We will be competing in 2 fall
events in Oct. Girlpower on Oct 12th is at Mount Saint Joseph
Academy in Flourtown and Duel on the Delaware is in Salem Count NJ the
following Sat. Oct 19th. We hope to see some of you
there.